


And the naked thrills of flesh and skin

by vogue91



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Loneliness, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: He closes his eyes and imagines how it would be, being just like everybody else, how it’d be to be troubled only by trivialities of everyday life, without anxiety or fear, without paranoias, without that suffocating feeling of loneliness.





	And the naked thrills of flesh and skin

Yuri knows.

He has known for a while that this is the way he’s supposed to live.

He knows, but he still hasn’t resigned to it.

He knows that no one’s going to come through that door, and yet he kept staring at it, while minutes flow and flow, he stares at it intently, as if doing so he could make it open.

He doesn’t even know who he’d like to see coming in to tear him away from himself, but he doesn’t care.

Anyone would do. He would settle even for someone calling or sending an e-mail, asking if everything’s okay, telling him he’s going to get a way out.

So he moves his gaze from the door to his phone, meeting a neutral screensaver that doesn’t tell him much.

There’s no call and no e-mail, and there’s no one at his door, and he sighs.

Just then he admits to himself he’s completely alone.

He had never minded much spending time on his own before.

He liked to have his independence, being free to think without any interference from the outside world, being able to dedicate himself to what he liked without other people distracting him.

In time, Yuri, had realized that there’s a huge difference between being alone and being lonely.

He’s realized it paying the price of other people’s indifference. He’s realized it during one of those endless nights, those that can’t seem to give him a break, those making a huge effort to remind him he’s alone inside that apartment, that no one sees his pain, because there’s no one next to him.

He’s learnt to accept it, not to make his peace with it.

He takes his phone, he doesn’t even know why, and looks at all his contacts.

There’s so many of them.

Most of those people, he’d like to have there with him.

He’d like to feel them close, he’d like for them to listen to him, even though he knows that even then he wouldn’t been able to talk about what bothers him.

Because, at least in that, he has always stayed the same.

Yuri doesn’t ask for help.

He doesn’t ask for help, but still he’d like for someone to notice he needs it.

He’s lost count of all those times he’s called one of his friends to finally open up with someone, and then has lost courage on the way, starting to talk about something else, laughing, because when you laugh it means that everything’s okay.

And as the time goes by, there are always new scars on his skin, and somehow he feels cheered up by the sight of the blood, and he smiles for a few minutes after having put back the razor blade, letting the wounds bleed convincing himself that everything’s going to be fine, that things are going to be fixed, that it’s going to be this one last time, because soon someone is going to notice that...

He sighs again, Yuri, unable to lie to himself to this point.

No one is going to see his suffering until he’ll be ready to show it.

He wishes he could avoid blaming himself, but he knows he can’t.

He’s never been good with words, he’s never been good at showing how he feels, but he’s always tried to show a sincere concern for others, even if he’s never managed that like he would’ve liked.

He’s learnt, and always on his own skin, that now always those you’ve worried about will worry about you, and that they’re all too caught up in their own problems to notice him, to the point that he’s started to feel invisible.

He’s thought about it a thousand times.

He’s thought about how it’d feel to start crying all of a sudden, he’s thought about showing his scars, and how then they would’ve all worried about him or would’ve pretended to, because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s inhumane to leave him to his pain when it’s impossible to ignore it any further.

Yuri looks at his arm and winces.

Blood tends to dry up quicker, and quicker disappears that illusory feeling of comfort.

He cuts, again.

He cuts, feeling his skin opening under the caress of the blade, feeling the wetness of blood, in a gesture repeated so many times that by now it’s almost mechanical, and it’s just when he truly focuses on it that he’s scared of himself.

Just like when he looks at the open window and his first thought goes to jumping, following that momentary instinct that he knows he can’t give in to.

Just like when he goes to bed at night and he dreams about how beautiful it’s be to never wake up again, how beautiful it’d be not to have to live all this, how...

He sighs, again.

He feels about to cry and he doesn’t want to, because then his pain would be real.

Until he keeps it quiet it doesn’t exist, not for him not for others, and that gives him the strength of meeting other people’s eyes and smile, it gives him the strength to go out every morning and meet those friends who think they know all about him, while they know nothing.

Because Yuri’s always cheerful, because Yuri doesn’t let anything harm him, because Yuri jokes about his problems, and goes on happy, without letting anything trouble him.

Because that’s the image he’s given of himself, and now it’s too late to take it back, and he wouldn’t even know where to start to change this side of him that doesn’t fit anymore.

The blood dries up again, and it’s still too soon, and now he hurts himself deeper, irritated by his body just like he is by his mind.

He closes his eyes, after.

He closes his eyes and imagines how it would be, being just like everybody else, how it’d be to be troubled only by trivialities of everyday life, without anxiety or fear, without paranoias, without that suffocating feeling of loneliness.

He opens his eyes on the room, and there’s still no one there, and he laughs a bit of himself for having fallen into that hope yet again.

Blood’s still flowing.

Slowly, it creates small droplets at the corner of the wounds on his tormented skin, and he’s almost fascinated by that blood, and he wishes it would never stop flowing, because he feels like he needs it more than breathing.

Or stop doing it, in his case.

He runs his finger over the largest drop of blood, spreading it on the already healed up wounds, digging his nails in his skin, afraid because the pain he feels still isn’t enough, and because he doesn’t know where his boundary lays and if he’d be really able to stop without before finding what he’s looking for.

He wished he could cry for help, but he still doesn’t know how to, and it’s like he’s lacking air and he can’t articulate a sound.

And he cries, finally, he cries all his tears because inside that horribly empty house he knows that even if he was to scream at the top of his lungs asking for someone to save him, no one would listen anyway.

He stands, starting to throw on the floor everything he can find.

He sees pictures taken with his friends, he sees their smiling faces surrounding his own, and those go on the floor as well, and he feels a sharp sense of hate through his chest, and he doesn’t want to stop to think about who’s the real recipient of that hate.

When he stops he can hardly breathe, but he doesn’t care.

If he can’t get his words out and he can’t take action and he can’t ease the pain with the blood that’s now staining his clothes, there are no other ways he knows to end that unfulfillable feeling of emptiness wrapped around his life.

He goes back to the couch, and now he feels calmer.

He sends an e-mail to Ryo. Then one to Yuya, then one to Yuto, to Kei, to Kota...

He sends an e-mail to all of them, and waits for their replies.

When the phone starts vibrating he smiles, sad, and sees them asking what’s wrong, if they can do something, if he needs help.

And he wants to scream, because it’s too late now.

He wishes he could call them one by one and tell them they should’ve asked before, that they should’ve noticed that he wasn’t happy, that they should’ve done something then, not now that he was on the verge of the abyss.

But he doesn’t do it, and he doesn’t reply to any of them.

All their mails to him are faceless and nameless, just like he feels right now, and even if he was to start talking now, he’d stop the moment after.

He doesn’t want it to become real, he doesn’t want to be asked questions.

He doesn’t really know what he wants.

That’s it, maybe he’d like for them to tell him what is that he truly desires. That’d be help he’d accept, but he should explain first, and catch them up with all the time he’s spent smiling, telling them that none of those smiles were real, that he’s never been so happy to make it, but that he’s just gotten used to smile to face all their problems, certain that his own would’ve been too much, that they would’ve been ignored because useless, because he couldn’t even explain where they took roots.

Yuri had tried.

He’s made up a speech inside his mind, a hundredth times.

And he’s never come to a conclusion, so he’s given up on it, because who was going to believe that such a great pain didn’t have its foundations anywhere?

Because they would have told him that everything was fine, that if he wanted things to change he should’ve taken the first step, that there was no reason to feel so bad over nothing.

And he would’ve smiled, nodded and thanked.

And for all the time the would’ve wasted talking to him he would’ve kept thinking about the state his skin was in, he would’ve kept seeing just the will to hurt himself to overcome it, and so what would’ve been the point?

There’s no solution, and he’s resigned to that.

He takes the blade again because the blood’s dried up, but this time he doesn’t blame his body.

He wasn’t going to add insult to injury.

He pressed down.

Once, twice, thrice.

He wishes he had so much room on his skin as much as his need to hurt it.

While he keeps cutting his phone vibrates again, longer, and he knows someone’s calling. He tells himself that if he’d have the strength to raise his eyes and answer that call it’d all be over, that whoever is calling would finally hear what he feels, that he’d run to him, and so that house wouldn’t be empty anymore, and he’d finally feel better.

But he can’t bring himself to it.

He can’t raise his eyes while his skin breaks open and the blood flows faster, he can’t distract himself from that self-destruction artwork, and he can’t even try to feel better, because he’s not looking for relief anymore, he just wants it all to be over.

When he closes his eyes, his phone is still vibrating.

He lets that noise cradle him like a lullaby, wallowing in the thought that someone’s worried about him, that someone cares, that someone’s wondering about his pain.

It doesn’t matter that it’s too late.

He’s at peace, finally.


End file.
